Berry White offers a nice uplifting but not paranoia-inducing high

Berry White

Berry White

Baynard Woods

Last year, I was staying in Exarchia, Greece which has become something of an autonomous zone when it comes to smoking. It is the coolest neighborhood I've ever seen, with dozens of bookstores and record stores and street art everywhere. And at night, groups of young people gather on the square and they smoke hash and are generally not fucked with. I wasn't going to go up and hassle them and freak them out by asking for their drugs, because there are still some strict punishments in Greece, but it was nice to smell on the streets and to think that perhaps the age of our American-enforced drug-policy tyranny is coming to an end.

When I got home and smoked, damn, was I high and it was almost worth holding off for so long. I smoked a strain cleverly called Berry White with a friend out of a giant glass "steamroller" in the back room of an unnamed location. It was more risque than I normally preferred—I still had nightmares in Greece about being raided by the police and trying to get rid of my plastic baggies; a recurrent nightmare since I was first arrested at 17—but in doing it I felt a kinship with those old-school rebetiko dudes and their narghiles.

The strain itself, an indica hybrid of Blueberry and White Widow, was a spectacular way to reintegrate with a nice uplifting but not paranoia-inducing high and a flavor that paired nicely with a long-craved IPA. Still, I look forward to a time when I can just travel with a small packet of pot in the same way I would bring tobacco overseas. (BW)